Matthew Abraham: Our stretched hotel quarantine system has created an enormous risk to the people of this state

The Premier’s assurance that our hotel quarantine system could bear the strain was very, very wrong, writes Matthew Abraham.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall and South Australian Chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier arrive at a press conference this week. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Mariuz

‘Last night I had the strangest dream I ever dreamed before.’ So begins departed US folk singer Ed McCurdy’s 1950s peace anthem. My dream was last Sunday night and while it wasn’t the strangest dream I ever dreamed before, it sure makes the top 50.

Premier Steven Marshall and I were wandering around a Mitsubishi car showroom. He looked dishevelled and not quite himself.

He fainted and, while his minder called the ambulance, the Premier kept groggily attempting to stagger to his feet. Trying to keep him calm in a horizontal consumption position, I shouted: “If you keep trying to get up I’ll punch you in the bloody face”. And then I woke. This really happened, or really didn’t happen, given it was a dream. Or was it?

On Monday, South Australians woke to find themselves in a coronavirus nightmare – the Parafield cluster – one that got weirder as the week rolled on.

Just as SA was getting back on its feet, we’ve been punched in the bloody face by COVID-19.

Now Premier Marshall is discovering what it’s like being COVID punch-drunk. Over the past week, he’s presided over an absolute debacle.

One of the people in quarantine at Peppers Hotel in the city who were facing another 14 days in lockdown after the Parafield cluster outbreak. Picture Emma Brasier

It’s a debacle that has damaged his until now squeaky clean credentials in steering SA adroitly through the pandemic, cost businesses possibly millions in trashed fresh produce and trade, seriously dented public trust and has made other states understandably jumpy about our coronavirus competence.

Wednesday’s live TV announcement of a blanket six-day lockdown had barely begun when it triggered a fabulous surge of panic buying. Who can blame us? The rising panic was obvious on the faces of chief medical officer Nicola Spurrier, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens and the Premier.

They looked scared; so were we.

Two days later, Australia’s most drastic lockdown became the world’s shortest, and most embarrassing – effectively over by lunchtime Friday, when they let the dogs out.

We now know it was all triggered by a single lie. An infected quarantine hotel kitchen hand allegedly told contact tracers he’d ordered a pizza from a Woodville pizza bar.

The Woodville Pizza Bar. Picture Matt Turner.

The truth was he’d worked at the pizza joint with an infectious security guard, who’d caught COVID-19 from his second job at Peppers Waymouth quarantine hotel. So the “customer” didn’t catch the virus from a pizza box.

Don’t shoot him, he’s only the pizza guy. If this single fib really did prompt a lock-in of 1.7 million people, it reeks of panic.

We all should continue to trust the government to get on top of this outbreak quickly. But it has serious questions to answer about how it let this deadly genie out of the quarantine bottle in the first place.

As cartoonist Jon Kudelka tweeted: “Look, if you’re in charge of setting up quarantine and you hire whoever to do it and then the bug escapes from quarantine then you stuffed up.”

The State Government needs to explain why staff were able to work across the quarantine hotels. Why they were permitted to go from a shift at a medi-hotel to a second job in a pizza bar, or a nursing home. And why all staff, from security to cleaners, weren’t tested regularly for COVID-19, as it said it would do months ago.

Professor Spurrier has repeatedly reassured us COVID-19 cases in the CBD’s quarantine hotels posed no threat to the community.

Just over a week ago, Seven News asked Premier Marshall whether SA was taking on too much with its hotel quarantine program – we then had 19 active cases, more than a quarter of the nation’s new infections.

“Yeah, look, we’re not concerned about the infections within the quarantine hotel because they’re very, very secure,” he replied.

“The important thing is, unlike other parts of the country, we’ve had very, very strict controls over our hotel quarantine. So, no risk to the people of our state.”

These blanket assurances were very, very wrong. Our stretched hotel quarantine system has created an enormous risk to the people of this state.

On Monday, Prof Spurrier revealed she’d been growing increasingly concerned about the rising numbers of people with COVID-19 entering our medi-hotels.

She’s not the only one.